The conversation about the Atlantic or Ibero-American cultural affinity is often based more on wishful thoughts than on facts. It is not always easy to reconcile two worldviews: the South American one, supposedly more sentimental and spontaneous (listen to bossa nova or tango nuevo), and the Portuguese one, more restrained and melancholic (fado). It turns out that these concepts are true, yes, but certainly not enough to describe the two views. There are also signs of fatalism and some taciturn in the South American music as there is something festive in the popular Portuguese music. To understand this, in fact, we have to free ourselves from the clichés, the stalls, and start talking, laughing, thinking and touch each other and with each other. Know ourselves. Live! This record is the realization of this experience. It belongs to the category of the facts because it embodies in practice this transatlantic relationship. In each track, we jump from one side to the other, increasing in diversity accomplished. In In-Out we are in Brazil, and Milongaglila we clearly enter in Argentina. We arrive to Portugal with Ana Cigana and we fly to America with the jazz of Momentum I. And so, throughout the disc, we walk in a kind of loitering that leads us to everywhere, never leaving anything definitely behind. We always departing and returning. And even with the same seasoning: this is a disc with feelings and spontaneity but also conceptual and rational. It is popular and erudite (as the title, Moderato Tangabile, deliciously indicates), structured and improvised. It is a proof that the contrasts can generate not a divorce but a beautiful wedding, dynamic and passionate, between such views and beyond the sea. A wedding, even more bright and original that puts side by side two instruments that rarely colligate. There aren´t that many records for tuba and piano. And, certainly, there is not a duo like Daniel Schvetz and Sérgio Carolino. Both of them mestizos, culturally ecumenical, shaped by classical culture and popular culture, simple and complex, cerebral and emotional. Both, in resume, enchanted with the world of possibilities for those who like to venture into new and old paths without distinction of creed.
João Almeida
Director of Antena 2, RDP
